Thrustmaster T500 RS Review

An arcade machine for your house.

Sometimes a gamepad and sticks wont really suffice for immersing yourself in a racing game. So what you can do buy a racing wheel and not one of those cheapo Walmart wheels either. A high quality force feedback wheel is arguably the best way to give a racing game that close to life feel, or at least until virtual reality comes out. So lets take a look at an offering from Thrustmaster; the T500 RS wheel.

Rubber texture detail

This wheel setup and it's pedals, not to mention the TH8A shifter and the Playseat Challenge I reviewed earlier all add up to be the biggest, heaviest, most expensive gaming controller I've ever owned. I didn't really want to skimp out on the wheel which was unfortunate the most expensive piece of the puzzle but I lucked out and got this basically mint T500 for over half the retail price. Remember the weight I mentioned? No shit. This thing is an absolute pig and it kept wanting to tip over when I was mounting it and then when it was mounted, it kept wanting to tip my seat over when it was opened up until I added the shifter to unintentionally act as counterbalance. You can use either the hard mount system or go with a clamp if you have a table but be careful not to drop this thing no you while doing so.

Wheel controls, unfortunately this only works with the PlayStation consoles and PC.

But weight is good, it's a sign of quality... usually. But at least in this case it is, and although most of the wheel is plastic, it's mechanical parts are made of metal. This wheel uses a belt drive system so it's a bit different from the G27 it replaced for me. While the Logitech used a series of gears paired to two small motors to drive the wheel, this uses one large motor and a belt to do the same thing but with notably more force resulting in more realistic feedback. Unlike the G27 which was leather bound, the T500 wheel is coated in rubber which is fine but it can feel slightly nasty with sweaty hands after long stints so gloves aren't a bad idea. Also unlike the G27, it's main controls are mounted on the wheel itself and not on the shifter, which speaking of which, the T500 does not come with one.

Pedals can be configured in two different ways, flat or vertical.

The pedals are also built rather heavy duty and they are greatly adjustable. For me they all feel about right in terms of stiffness but the clutch could be a little more stiff for my taste because both the clutch and the gas pedal are the same stiffness. This is because of these pedals other purpose. With some tools, because you usually can't own a racing wheel without having to bust out some tools at some point, you can actually switch the pedals between a vertical or flat layout and press a button on the wheel base to switch the clutch and gas pedals to make this work.

Detail of the modular wheel base.

The overall feel of the set is very high quality and comfortable for the most part. Like with most other wheels you can tune the force feedback in game to different levels. If you don't like the wheel that ships with the T500, you can unscrew it from the wheel base and pop on a different Thrustmaster wheel of your preference, plus you can also remove the static paddles if you don't want them. My biggest fault with this wheel is compatibility. It only has full, dedicated support on PS3 and PC, it works on the PS4 too but only in certain games like Project CARS or Driveclub so you can't navigate the dashboard with it. If you are an Xbox user, you're out of luck but I'm eventually going to see if a TX wheel base can be used in place of the T500 wheel base in order to use it on Xbox. At $600 bucks, it's insanely expensive for a game controller, not counting any extras like a rig, gear shifter, or optional wheels but compared to similar offerings from Fanatec in which the Clubsport wheel base itself cost as much as the full T500 set, it's a fairly solid deal. I'd say this falls in line between the G27 and a full fledged Fanatec setup in terms of quality plus price and it delivers greatly.

Is It Better Than?

Logitech G27- Depends, this is an excellent wheel having used one for years until I got the T500 RS. You get just about everything the T500 has plus a shifter and although it's now discontinued, it's not uncommon to find these wheels for well under $300 bucks. The T500 is overall a better feeling product and has more customization options than the G27, although I do prefer the leather bound feel of the G27 a bit more over the T500. If you're not looking to splurge too much on a force feedback wheel, the G27 is arguably your best bet.

Logitech G29- Yes, this all the G29 really is; an overpriced G27 that comes with no shifter which is now a separate add on. It feels much the same apart from the controls being moved to the wheel and it's only plus is dedicated PS4 compatibility. The T500 RS is still better overall but compared to the cheaper G27, the G29 feels like a bit of a rip off. And this is partly Sony's fault as they did not make dedicated compatibility for PS3 wheels on the PS4 for some reason.